[SOLVED] Simple bash question - replacing single quotes in filenames with another character

newbash · 01-26-2011, 03:46 PM

Hopefully easy !

Can anyone offer a code snippet to recursively go through directories and replace any single or double quotes quotes found in a filename with another character (e.g. "_").

My directory structure looks like :-

Parent
|--------DIR1
| |-----File1
| |-----File2
|
|--------DIR2
| |-----File3
| |-----File4

etc

If any of the filenames contain a single quote or double quote, then replace it with an underscore.

Thanks in advance !

kbp · 01-26-2011, 04:15 PM

Give this a go:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]
then
        echo "Usage: $0 <dirname>"
        exit 1
fi

for file in $(find $1 -type f)
do
        echo "Testing $file"
        if [[ $(echo "$(basename $file)" | grep -q "\'") -eq 0 ]]
        then
                dirname=$(dirname $file)
                newfile=$(echo $(basename $file) | tr "'" "_")
                mv $file $dirname/$newfile
                echo "Changed $file to $newfile"
        fi
done

Sorry, just noticed you wanted double quotes as well, are you ok to modify the script above ?

grail · 01-26-2011, 05:59 PM

As we already have unusual characters like quotes in file names, if i was a betting man I would say there are spaces as well which will word split if
using a for loop. So perhaps try something like:

Code:

#!/bin/bash

while read -r F_PATH
do
    FILE=${F_PATH##*/}
    mv $F_PATH ${F_PATH%/*}/${FILE//[\'\"]/_}
done< <(find $1 -type f -iname "*['\"]*")

crts · 01-26-2011, 07:56 PM

Hi,

here is a single find that will do it

Code:

find "/path/to/dir/" -type f -iname "*['\"]*" -exec /bin/bash -c 'echo mv -n "${1}" "${1//["'\''"\"]/_}" ' {} {} \;

If the results look alright to you then remove the 'echo' to make the changes actually happen.
The '-n' option after the 'mv' command is there to make sure that no file is overwritten in case you have files like
file'with'quotes
file"with"quotes

In this case handling the renaming process will be a bit more complex. But at this point I assume that the target-names will still be unique. Post again if this assumption is not valid.

grail · 01-26-2011, 10:31 PM

@crts - I thought of something like yours but then thought, if the filenames are buggered maybe the directories are too, which would then cause something like yours to make the
change to the entire path. hmmm .. just thinking out loud but I guess you could get past that by using execdir??

crts · 01-27-2011, 03:30 AM

Hi grail,

you are right. And I was considering to use -execdir at first for the same reason. But then I thought that if the OP wants to change the filenames, then maybe he also wants to change the directory names. So I went with -exec.
The main problem I see with normal -exec is in this case:
dir'with'quote/file1
dir"with"quote/file2

Afterwards file1 and file2 will be in the same directory which might be what the OP wants - or maybe not. I think some clarification from the OP is required to clear things up.

PS: If it turns out that several files will have the same name and path after renaming then I think a simple 'find' will indeed not cut it.

newbash · 01-28-2011, 03:55 AM

Thanks all - much appreciated. The directory names are fine, it was just the filenames, so the one-liner is exactly what I need.

grail · 01-28-2011, 05:37 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by crts

Hi grail,

you are right. And I was considering to use -execdir at first for the same reason. But then I thought that if the OP wants to change the filenames, then maybe he also wants to change the directory names. So I went with -exec.
The main problem I see with normal -exec is in this case:
dir'with'quote/file1
dir"with"quote/file2

Afterwards file1 and file2 will be in the same directory which might be what the OP wants - or maybe not. I think some clarification from the OP is required to clear things up.

PS: If it turns out that several files will have the same name and path after renaming then I think a simple 'find' will indeed not cut it.

Actually I think you will also run into an issue should the directory names be buggered (I realise the OP has now said they are fine) as the following would fail:

Code:

path=/var/path/this"has'quotes/file's.txt

mv $path ${path//["'\''"\"]/_}

This will crap out as it will try to look for a path like:

Code:

/var/path/this_has_quotes/file_s.txt

Which of course does not exist

JakartaDean · 08-10-2012, 10:17 PM

I realize this is an old post, but wanted to pass my thanks on to all. I got a bunch of files which some moron had given filenames with the author's name, including a single quote. Frustrating to no end, until I came across this. I did try some regexp commands, but I'm not clever enough, I guess, to handle this rather special case. Very valuable.